Selfish
by sky-lee
Summary: Tokkaish. Oneshot. Toph begins to wonder why these nightmares keep plaguing her.


**A/N- I mainly posted this just to prove that I am, indeed, still alive. **

**Song- Follow and Feel by Saosin.**

**Disclaimer- I do not own Avatar or any of the epic components of the show.**

**Sorry. I'm too tired to think of a more creative author's note. Reviews would be fabuuuuulousssssssss.**

* * *

_Maybe if I keep running, it'll all stop. Just don't look back, Toph. Eyes…erm…feet…focused forward. Nothing's chasing you. You're just running in a strangely quiet and dark forest for the hell of it._

I ran, chanting words of encouragement in my head over and over again. I inhaled deeply, so as to not run out of breath while sprinting for my life. The terrain ahead of me was not ideal, but I managed; bounding and leaping like it was no one's business. There was no way I was getting captured, not like Aang and Katara. As I worried about what condition they were in, I tripped on a rock in my path, and quickly recovered with a roll and leap back onto my feet. I immediately cut myself off from selfless thoughts. _That's it! Think only of yourself. That's not hard. But what if they are…STOP. No thoughts about anyone else._

Against my own will, a thought occurred to me.

Where was Sokka?

I hadn't seen him since Katara and Aang's capture. Was he hiding? Was he running somewhere else? I put more force on my sprint, so I could sense more. Nothing but a forest and quickly ascending Dai Li agents behind me. I pushed my disappointment and worry from my conscious and refocused myself for the umpteenth time. I picked up my pace and slowed down when I came to a fork in the road. I kicked up the dust going towards the right path and ran off of the path towards the left. I stopped about 500 yards after, realizing that the earth stopped there. A cliff.

"Damnit!" I whispered fiercely to myself. I sensed that the Dai Li had caught onto my ruse, and that they were heading straight toward me. Hopeless, I pivoted 180 degrees, so my front was facing the craggy side of the cliff. I backed up until my heel was in open air. I inhaled sharply.

And I fell.

I seemed to be in midair for hours. The feeling of blindness overwhelmed me as I felt the wind rush around me. As a last resort I screamed.

"TOPH!"

I bolted upright in bed, gasping for air.

"Are you alright? I tried to wake you up when you started convulsing earlier, but you wouldn't snap out of it. Was it that dream again? The chase? And the falling? Do you want to-"

"Letting me breathe first would be a good idea, Sokka."

He snapped his mouth shut.

I let the oxygen return to my lungs and lowered my sky high heart rate. Sokka placed his hand on my arm and mindlessly traced patterns across my exposed skin. The path he traced was leaving a burning trail behind it; in one word, distracting.

"Cut that out," I ordered. "It's not helping."

He pulled his hand away and I pulled my knees up to my chest and breathed in a few more times. I felt the mattress move and Sokka's arms wrap around my frame.

"I know, I know. This isn't helping. But sometimes you need to accept that physical contact CAN be okay. You don't need to act all tough, you know. Dreams can be scary."

"But why is it always this one? I can't pinpoint what it is that's driving me to think about that night so much."

"Regret," Sokka answered immediately. "Any obvious regrets you can think of?"

I said the words I'd been unable to for those passed few years.

" Well, before I jumped, I pushed away you. And Aang and Katara. I pushed away everyone. I'm not really that selfish, Sokka. I just kid and pretend. I care about you all so much, no matter what I say. You accepted me in your group; I had friends! How could I ever think about abandoning you guys?"

"Sh…don't think that way. Possibly dying brings out the worst in us. I'm not surprised you forgot about us. But just think, if you hadn't saved yourself, none of us would be alive."

A surge of warmth and relief spread through my body as this information soaked in. My heart beat leveled out to normal and I smiled.

"Thanks, Meathead," I said as I placed a small kiss on his arm, still tightly wrapped around me.

"No problem, Lady Fancy Fingers," He breathed into my hair.

* * *

The dream started off the same as always. I was running and panicking. Before I knew it, I was at the cliff again. When I finally plummeted, a new sensation overwhelmed me. Skillfully, I slammed my fists into the Cliffside, and slowed to a complete stop. I scaled the side of the cliff, listening intently for the Dai Li around me. _Ah-ha._ They all were surrounded in a huddle no more than thirty feet from the cliff's edge. _Bad decision_, I thought ploddingly.

Needless to say, the agents were rather stupefied when a petite girl emerged from the ground and proceeded to take down each of them.

"Now," I spat as I grabbed the collar of the last conscious man's robe, "why did you ever think you dunderheads could outsmart the greatest earthbender ever?"


End file.
